Failed 70-292 and 70-296 today

Okay not that much for 70-296... with only 663/700 (I knew that I fell short
in time for preparation) but I am still wondering what a 350/700 means for
70-292.
Above all, I am wondering what kind of tormented guys have written down the
questions for 70-292. Questions that are formulated like sibylline
prophecies. Incomplete informations that will do no good in helping
answering the questions.
With such unfair questions, braindumps are promised a long long life!
I have the feeling that I would have scored exactly the same if I would have
randomly chosen the answers.
All this makes me wonder what all that is for? And whether I will
re-certify.
This leads me to ask one question: do you really think that a certification
is of any help, as promised by Microsoft? Until now it made no difference
for me, whether it was for an answer to a RFP or whether it was about
seeking a new job. In such cases, the certifications were only a very
(microscopic?) minor differentiator.
I fell that the only good reasons for passing these certifications are: 1)
Intellectual satisfaction, 2) Proof that one is still able to learn and pass
exams and 3) Proving a minimal level of knowledge (and NOT experience as
claimed by Microsoft).
If anyone has another good reason, maybe I will give it another try.

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"Charles Lehmann" <> wrote
> I fell that the only good reasons for passing these certifications are: 1)
> Intellectual satisfaction, 2) Proof that one is still able to learn and
pass
> exams and 3) Proving a minimal level of knowledge (and NOT experience as
> claimed by Microsoft).
> If anyone has another good reason, maybe I will give it another try.

I would agree that MS certification is not having the results that MS is
intending. The main certifcation does is get your resume past the HR bots
and hopefully land you an interview, then your proven experience will get
you a job.

So, I guess the bottom line is are the jobs you applying for requiring
certification?

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did you hear "Charles Lehmann" <>
say in news:4219fcb1$0$3413$:
> I fell that the only good reasons for passing these certifications
> are: 1) Intellectual satisfaction, 2) Proof that one is still able to
> learn and pass exams and 3) Proving a minimal level of knowledge (and
> NOT experience as claimed by Microsoft).

sounds about right. except for the exam providing minimal experience.
Exams don't provide experience with a product, it's the other way round.
If you have experience you will be successful with the exam.

Personally I think the exam should be more practical based. e.g. you get a
virtual PC, plus maybe a server, and a problem is setup inside that virtual
network. Then its down to experiance to troubleshoot and fix that problem!
You'd gain points for each troubleshooting step taken i.e. 2 systems, unable
to communicate, so you ping loopback - 1 point, ping the local ip - 1 point,
ping the gateway - 1 point etc... I think a practical would be a) test your
skills and experiance better, 2) be more fun, as you wouldn't have to read
27 pages of text relating to the scenario, you could just get on with fixing
it, and c) be harder to brain dump, as people wouldn't be able to go in and
just copy down all the questions to sell on the internet!

"Neil" <guess!!!@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns960473E175393neilmcsegmailcom@207.46.248.16...
> did you hear "Charles Lehmann" <>
> say in news:4219fcb1$0$3413$:
>
> > I fell that the only good reasons for passing these certifications
> > are: 1) Intellectual satisfaction, 2) Proof that one is still able to
> > learn and pass exams and 3) Proving a minimal level of knowledge (and
> > NOT experience as claimed by Microsoft).
>
> sounds about right. except for the exam providing minimal experience.
> Exams don't provide experience with a product, it's the other way round.
> If you have experience you will be successful with the exam.
>
> --
> Neil MCNGP#30 (MCSE2003)
>
> - Just because I don't care doesn't meant I don't understand.

"Neil" <guess!!!@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns960473E175393neilmcsegmailcom@207.46.248.16...
> did you hear "Charles Lehmann" <>
> say in news:4219fcb1$0$3413$:
>
> > I fell that the only good reasons for passing these certifications
> > are: 1) Intellectual satisfaction, 2) Proof that one is still able to
> > learn and pass exams and
> > *******3) Proving a minimal level of knowledge (and
> > NOT experience as claimed by Microsoft).****** [asterisks added]
>
> sounds about right. except for the exam providing minimal experience.
> Exams don't provide experience with a product, it's the other way round.
> If you have experience you will be successful with the exam.
>
> --
> Neil MCNGP#30 (MCSE2003)
>
> - Just because I don't care doesn't meant I don't understand.

"Ben" <> wrote in message
news:#...
> Personally I think the exam should be more practical based. e.g. you get a
> virtual PC, plus maybe a server, and a problem is setup inside that
virtual
> network. Then its down to experiance to troubleshoot and fix that problem!
> You'd gain points for each troubleshooting step taken i.e. 2 systems,
unable
> to communicate, so you ping loopback - 1 point, ping the local ip - 1
point,
> ping the gateway - 1 point etc... I think a practical would be a) test
your
> skills and experiance better, 2) be more fun, as you wouldn't have to read
> 27 pages of text relating to the scenario, you could just get on with
fixing
> it, and c) be harder to brain dump, as people wouldn't be able to go in
and
> just copy down all the questions to sell on the internet!
>

i think you've highlighted problems with the new approach. MSFT has
indicated they're going to grade on the method you use to solve the problem,
not just solve/not solve (the better way).

but grading the method can lead to pure subjectivity. e.g., your example:
what you ping first could depend on your experience with the network. say
you worked at a place that just hired a new "Router God." you would
probably first ping the far end, then the near end, of the router. but if
you were "supposed" to ping the localhost first, you could lose points.

and, how is this hard to braindump? if anything, it seems easier: the
dumper just writes down the steps: ping this, ping that, ping the next thing
and so on.
or cuts and pastes from windows help.

Or, after wading through a half page of text, your problem turns out to be
to add Consuela and Jaime to a group from the command line. Question
designed to be slightly tricky, making you think of using dsadd rather than
dsmod; but other than that, the difficulty is remembering the syntax
(gddammm! is it a dash or a slash here) and avoiding typos.

that would be pretty easy to dump. granted, the problems could be more
involved, but that just means a longer dump.

an advantage to the new method _might_ be that the questions become more
concrete, rerducing the number of extremely bizzarre scenarios. like, for
example, some of those occurring in the designing directory services exam
for Win2K. or perhaps now, from what the OP said, some of those in 292.
(having blanked my memory to avoid inadvertently violating the NDA, i can't
remember _any_ questions from 292. i got a "pass." i felt severely
insulted. i expected a check for $50,000.)

obviously, this is just speculation; i haven't seen any of the actual
questions.

Mike

>
> "Neil" <guess!!!@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns960473E175393neilmcsegmailcom@207.46.248.16...
> > did you hear "Charles Lehmann" <>
> > say in news:4219fcb1$0$3413$:
> >
> > > I fell that the only good reasons for passing these certifications
> > > are: 1) Intellectual satisfaction, 2) Proof that one is still able to
> > > learn and pass exams and 3) Proving a minimal level of knowledge (and
> > > NOT experience as claimed by Microsoft).
> >
> > sounds about right. except for the exam providing minimal experience.
> > Exams don't provide experience with a product, it's the other way round.
> > If you have experience you will be successful with the exam.
> >
> > --
> > Neil MCNGP#30 (MCSE2003)
> >
> > - Just because I don't care doesn't meant I don't understand.
>
>

> Personally I think the exam should be more practical based. e.g. you get a
> virtual PC, plus maybe a server, and a problem is setup inside that
> virtual
> network. Then its down to experiance to troubleshoot and fix that problem!
> You'd gain points for each troubleshooting step taken i.e. 2 systems,
> unable
> to communicate, so you ping loopback - 1 point, ping the local ip - 1
> point,
> ping the gateway - 1 point etc... I think a practical would be a) test
> your
> skills and experiance better, 2) be more fun, as you wouldn't have to read
> 27 pages of text relating to the scenario, you could just get on with
> fixing
> it, and c) be harder to brain dump, as people wouldn't be able to go in
> and
> just copy down all the questions to sell on the internet!
>
>
So what? Who has REALLY implemented and maintained Certificate authority,
Terminal server, IIS, Clusters, EFS, DFS, VSS, Software distribution through
GPOs, SUS, ... and all the bells and whistles Microsoft is claiming....
Who has REALLY implemented all the functions and goodies that one is
measured up on the certification tests.
I might be off subject... but here in central Europe, I do NOT BELIEVE that
every MCSE has implemented and maintained all the goodies one is tested
against for the upgrade examinations...
Therefore what is the purpose of testing every possible feature and claim
that the testing is against experience? I think that is WRONG!
Either Microsoft claims that the testing is against experience and the tests
should be conducted in a Cisco CCIE manner where an expert is looking over
your shoulders. Or Microsoft should revise their certification strategies
claiming that what is being tested is not experience but knowledge.
Sorry of being a bit "biting"... but I think that there is a
misunderstanding about the certification purposes.

In microsoft.public.cert.exam.mcse, MikeF climbed on a soapbox & opined:
> i think you've highlighted problems with the new approach. MSFT has
> indicated they're going to grade on the method you use to solve the
> problem, not just solve/not solve (the better way).
>
> but grading the method can lead to pure subjectivity. e.g., your
> example: what you ping first could depend on your experience with the
> network. say you worked at a place that just hired a new "Router God."
> you would probably first ping the far end, then the near end, of the
> router. but if you were "supposed" to ping the localhost first, you
> could lose points.

This is one of the problems with the MS tests. Years ago, I was required
to pass a couple of the MOUS (office) tests as a job requirement.*spit*

The entire test was a matter of knowing the exact sequence of clicks to
perform a certain action. Anyone using the product may not remember
exactly every step an an action, but knows where to go to find it. A
dumpers playgound of rote memorization. A truer assessment of skills
would be to assign a task and grade the result. With Virtual Server, it
should be simple to set up test scenarios that would really show whether
a candidate knew what they were doing.

> I would agree that MS certification is not having the results that MS is
> intending. The main certifcation does is get your resume past the HR bots
> and hopefully land you an interview, then your proven experience will get
> you a job.
>
> So, I guess the bottom line is are the jobs you applying for requiring
> certification?
>

I do not know how things are going elsewhere.
But at my place (central Europe... well to be more precise... Switzerland)
certifications really play a minor, minor, minor role. Everybody knows
everyone. So the first question will be: what project were you involved in?
Then, your performance will be evaluated in the background based on the
feedback HR gets...
Only after that will you be asked: did you get any certifications?
So... there are no big values set on certifications here...
Therefore: what is the point?

What I would like is: could anybody make a testimony for the fact that
his/her certification played a major role in the decision for a proposal or
for a job application? When I say: major role, I do not mean cases where HR
said: "great, you are a MCSE!"... I mean that you really got shortlisted
BECAUSE you were a MCSE.

did you hear "Charles Lehmann" <>
say in news:421a2c79$0$3413$:
> So what? Who has REALLY implemented and maintained
> Certificate authority,

ok so we are _evaluating_ RSA vs a subordinate public root using MS CA
> Terminal server,

me! anyone worth thier salt will at least set up remote admin mode. For
apps Citrix is still better IMHO
> IIS,

me
> Clusters,

me
> EFS,

me (for a VAR under Win2k)
> DFS,

me (with the fault tolerance features too. but I did DFS under NT 4)
> VSS,

me
> Software distribution through GPOs,

me (monthly updates to one software package are deployed this way so I do
this monthly)
> SUS, ...

ok there are some holes here. I think that patch manglement can be done
better and until they get the update for it (SUS, WUS or whatever the
name o' the day is) I will have to stick to something else. SMS is a PITA
and Shavlik is what I use for the Servers (can't afford it for every
client machine).

Truth is there wasn't anythign there that made me think "oh well, no one
will EVER use that". but at the same time, I would rather have MS test
for everything and you not use it, than for MS to test just a few things,
allow every Tom, Dick and Rowdy (ok maybe Rowdy can be an MCSE) to become
an MCSE, and never force admins to learn about the "other" features of
the products.

At the same time I like the CCIE concept. But if you think you had your
head handed to you on this one, imagine the MS equivalent of the CCIE.

Yeah! Yeah! Like Brian in Monty Python's...
>
>> but I think that there is a
>> misunderstanding about the certification purposes.
>
> Nominated for "Understatement of the Quarter"
>

Do not get me wrong. I am not saying that certifications are worthless.
What I am saying is that one should stop (starting at Microsoft) stating
that a MCSE certification will help you get a better job or promoted, or get
better projects. Sounds to me like the "how to get rich in 5 minutes"
stories... .

Since you're in CH, I heard that UBS were looking for people to work in
Basel for a .NET project. They were screening out anybody without MCSD. I
have to say it's the first time I ever heard of a Microsoft cert being used
as a filter criteria, but apparently it was true.

I think you were spot on with your reasons for taking certs though. I'd add
as a fourth reason: 4) To prove that you're willing to invest your own time
and money in learning newer technology. It shows that you have confidence in
yourself.

Best of luck. Your post was easily the most coherent of the week.

"Charles Lehmann" <> wrote in message
news:421a3e64$0$3399$...
> > I would agree that MS certification is not having the results that MS is
> > intending. The main certifcation does is get your resume past the HR
bots
> > and hopefully land you an interview, then your proven experience will
get
> > you a job.
> >
> > So, I guess the bottom line is are the jobs you applying for requiring
> > certification?
> >
>
> I do not know how things are going elsewhere.
> But at my place (central Europe... well to be more precise... Switzerland)
> certifications really play a minor, minor, minor role. Everybody knows
> everyone. So the first question will be: what project were you involved
in?
> Then, your performance will be evaluated in the background based on the
> feedback HR gets...
> Only after that will you be asked: did you get any certifications?
> So... there are no big values set on certifications here...
> Therefore: what is the point?
>
> What I would like is: could anybody make a testimony for the fact that
> his/her certification played a major role in the decision for a proposal
or
> for a job application? When I say: major role, I do not mean cases where
HR
> said: "great, you are a MCSE!"... I mean that you really got shortlisted
> BECAUSE you were a MCSE.
>
> Charles Lehmann
>
>

did you hear "Charles Lehmann" <-
spam-dot.ch> say in news:421acf7b$0$3414$:
> Sounds to me like the "how to get rich in 5 minutes"
> stories... .
>

my mother used to tell me that "if it sounds too good to be true, it
probably is". I have never taken an exam in hopes of getting more pay.

ok that's a lie. I was working for a VAR a few years back and 3Com was
paying sales reps (some cash) a test for each test they passed. When they
rolled that out to Feild Engineers as well I wrote 24 and collected my
check. Only cold hard cash I can directly attribute to exams.

"Neil" wrote:
> did you hear "Charles Lehmann" <>
> say in news:421a2c79$0$3413$:
>
> > So what? Who has REALLY implemented and maintained
> > Certificate authority,
>
> ok so we are _evaluating_ RSA vs a subordinate public root using MS CA
>
> > Terminal server,
>
> me! anyone worth thier salt will at least set up remote admin mode. For
> apps Citrix is still better IMHO
>
> > IIS,
>
> me
>
> > Clusters,
>
> me
>
> > EFS,
>
> me (for a VAR under Win2k)
>
> > DFS,
>
> me (with the fault tolerance features too. but I did DFS under NT 4)
>
> > VSS,
>
> me
>
> > Software distribution through GPOs,
>
> me (monthly updates to one software package are deployed this way so I do
> this monthly)
>
> > SUS, ...
>
> ok there are some holes here. I think that patch manglement can be done
> better and until they get the update for it (SUS, WUS or whatever the
> name o' the day is) I will have to stick to something else. SMS is a PITA
> and Shavlik is what I use for the Servers (can't afford it for every
> client machine).
>
> Truth is there wasn't anythign there that made me think "oh well, no one
> will EVER use that". but at the same time, I would rather have MS test
> for everything and you not use it, than for MS to test just a few things,
> allow every Tom, Dick and Rowdy (ok maybe Rowdy can be an MCSE) to become
> an MCSE, and never force admins to learn about the "other" features of
> the products.
>
> At the same time I like the CCIE concept. But if you think you had your
> head handed to you on this one, imagine the MS equivalent of the CCIE.
>
> My 2Â¢
>
> --
> Neil MCNGP#30
>
> - If you choke a smurf, what color does it turn?
>

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